"Ship requests Autonomy Level 1..."
For some reason, that line from Weapons of Choice has stayed with me all these years later. We didn’t get there of course, but I guess we’re on the way.
From Austal’s website yesterday.
In a noteworthy development within the Australian maritime sector, the collaborative Patrol Boat Autonomy Trial (PBAT) project has successfully completed Sea Acceptance Trials (including Endurance Trials) of the remote and autonomously operated vessel, Sentinel.
The trials, conducted by Austal Australia, consisted of a series of remote and autonomous navigation events conducted off the Western Australian coastline during March and April 2024; utilising Greenroom Robotics’ Advanced Maritime Autonomy (GAMA) Software to reliably navigate the de-commissioned Armidale-class Patrol Boat.
I’m currently plotting out the second book of the WW 3.X series, and so far most of the action has been on land. We haven’t seen much in the way of drone warfare yet, but I’ll remedy that in the next two books.
I’d guess that a decent use for augmented tech of this sort might be sending missile barges into harm’s way to fire off swarms of either autonomous or guided weapons.
Of course, you’d have to worry about your barge getting captured and sent back against you.
Coming to it late, I know, but I'm just reading the first Valley novel by Jason and the thing that strikes me most about it are the deep fears for an ordinary soldier of just running out of ammo or being unprotected in a vulnerable location.
My guess is that we're right to be worrying about AI, but are we going to be sending our AI drones up against their AI drones? What would be the point? It's got to be about territory and at that point it has to be about humans who understand conserving materiel and being as safe as possible in an unsafe location.
Yeah or the the Tech becomes self aware and we are all running screaming for our lives. Which according to all known sci fi is inevitable. I could foresee being offed by a rogue Rumba